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A new study shows that the most well-received apology might be the old-fashioned sort – just saying sorry.
An important part of being an adult is knowing how and when to apologise.
If you’ve royally screwed up before, you’ve probably considered giving the wronged party some kind of gift to aid in your absolution. The greater the regret, the larger the bouquet.
However, a recent study has shown that if you want to express your remorse, you might well be better off just doing it verbally. Or at least, definitely don’t have the word ‘sorry’ written somewhere on your present.
According to Daily Mail, the study by Wageningen University in the Netherlands has found that designated apology gifts are actually likely to make things worse, as they are evaluated more negatively compared with verbal apologies or to receiving gifts without a label.
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Their investigation focused on two gift products – flowers and chocolates – and examined the effect of an apology label on the items, such as the word ‘sorry’, on how they were evaluated by recipients.
The study’s results, published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, showed that if you gave those gifts with an apology note, they were perceived less positively than those with a plain gift label or no label at all.
So perhaps no gift at all, is really the way to go when saying sorry. While it might not feel as satisfying to your sense of penitence, it’s certainly cheaper.
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Forget the flowers – and definitely any kind of “sorry” wording. Save your cash and give a more likely to be well-received verbal apology instead.
“When recipients receive an apology gift, they evaluate the gift and giver-recipient relationship more negatively compared to regular products, to receiving regular gifts, or towards verbal apologies,” reported the study.
Further experiments revealed people were less likely to accept apology gifts compared with randomly given gifts and were also not as likely to appreciate them.
This was because they served as “strong negative reminders of a transgression”, making them less valuable and therefore more likely to be re-gifted or disposed of.
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